Assembling “Genuine GM Parts”: Rural Homeworkers and Economic Development

This article examines industrial homeworking, a particular form of restructured production, in two rural, midwestern communities that incorporated these jobs as part of an economic development strategy. Case studies of these communities provide the data to discuss the process of development and the conditions of homeworking. Homework, as development, incorporated the gendered division of labor in the home into market relations and promoted uneven development between urban and rural areas. These cases point to the need to reconceptualize development, especially in rural communities.